Happy Birthday LongTallAlly.com

Happy Birthday LongTallAlly.com

Well well well, today appears to have been the one year anniversary of starting this here blog, and I forgot it. I’m a bad bad person. For some reason I had it in my head that it was the 18th of September, and now I’m worrying that I’ve got something important happening on the 18th that I should remember but have forgotten. I can’t believe it’s been a year since I started this little enterprise, and look where I am now – rattling through my first book based on this very site. Ooh get me!

Tonight I started my volunteering at junior yoof club, and I’m amazed to say I really really enjoyed myself. It felt good to be ‘giving something back’ and I had great fun getting stuck in with the homemade playdoh stuff and making sesame street characters. The kids were really sweet and it has only reinforced my desire to become a teacher. I obviously still harbour desires to become the next Marian Keyes (only less Irish; I’m shocking at accents) but I will also be really happy working with my own class of children. I was worried that the children would be mean about my weight because let’s face it children can be really cruel but they didn’t mention it at all and I was quite happily crawling round on the floor with them after about half an hour. The only mention of my size at all was one of the little boys who poked my bottom and said ‘squishy’ in order to get my attention, to be fair he was so tiny it was all he could reach! And it made me chuckle.

I think if you had told me a year ago when I started this endeavour that I would be volunteering with local children and I’d feel comfortable in my own skin whilst doing it I would have told you to cock off and laughed in your face. It just goes to show how much I’ve changed and how my confidence has grown. The other indication of how much I’ve changed is that I will no longer accept crap from my ‘friends’ about who I am or what I like. I will no longer let people put me down or belittle me under the guise of ‘friendship’, something that I used to do in a major way (but only now am realising). One person in particular has used friendship as a reason to kick me while I’m down and retain an air of mental superiority causing me to run to the fridge on many occasions and to develop and maintain a loathing of myself that I am only just beginning to combat. Well, not anymore. If they even try it now they’re going to feel the full force of almost a decade’s worth of rage. I am me, I am not perfect and I am well aware of my flaws but they are *my* flaws and I cherish them for making me human, what I do not need is something who is quick to point out my flaws repeatedly in an effort to make themselves feel better just because they can’t deal with their own shit. It’s not my fault if you can’t face who you are and where you’re headed in life so quit taking it out on me. /rant